Our Cause
by HumBee
Summary: IDW/Megatron&Soundwave mostly/Cameos of Hook and Skywarp/Intended Skywarp later. T for now/Intended to be M later. Originally a really old RP. During a fierce battle with the Autobots, Megatron takes a near-fatal blow and is sent unconscious for days. Soundwave, being the diligent follower, is the one to rescue him and stays by his side as he recovers.
1. Chapter 1

The world around him was a spinning blur. Voices cried out, and he could hear blasts from cannons ringing somewhere above and to one side of him. He wondered briefly why he seemed to be lower than everyone else. _Oh, this was the ground._ He'd fallen. That's right, one of the Autobot slaggers had caught him from behind while he was charging his true opponent, Prime. He'd felt a horrible, excruciating pain in his shoulder, then one in his helm. He saw, there, his hand was outstretched on the ground in front of him, lax. How could he see it so clearly when everything else was so blurry? How... odd..

He was sure he grimaced, though he couldn't feel his face move, and the tilting world started to darken. He cursed everything in that moment, that he couldn't get his hands on Prime, that he'd been so easy to target and bring down. But at least if he was going to die, it'd be here. Yes, at least it'd be a death his subordinates would remember and honor, even feel humbled to. Satisfied with that thought, he let his optics offline, and everything went dark and quiet.

"LORD MEGATRON!" One of the Seekers had seen it first, and shrieked out his leader's name as he swooped from the sky, blasting away Autobots as they tried to take hits on him. He screamed for help, unable to do anything about his lord's bleeding form that was much too heavy for him to even think of carrying. He was the one to see the red optics go dark, and howled in grief as he tried to shake the overlord back into consciousness, squealing his name over and over, desperate for someone to take notice and help their fallen leader.

Soundwave reeled back, the shrieks grating against his audios even after he had turned them down to a mere fifteen percent, his large frame spinning around to find the source of such terrible cries. He stopped dead in his tracks, optics widening beneath his visor, and then he was off, running and dodging, even snarling openly at anyone who got in his way, barely noticing when he took a shot to his left side, ignoring the hot slide of fresh energon flowing from the new wound. He grabbed the purple seeker, gently moving him aside as he commed to Starscream, telling him to get the troops to retreat.

"I will need your assistance in carrying him, Skywarp. Get his legs. " Even as he issued the command he had moved around, motioning for a barrier of sorts from the soldiers close by, pleased when they moved to do his bidding; he would have to reward them later.

But right now he desperately needed to get their master to Hook. The burly old medic wouldn't be happy, not at all. But he could at least try to fix the extensive damage Megatron had sustained.

With a powerful heave, he lifted the larger mech's upper framing, grunting in pain as a new rush of energon leaked from his side, dentae gritting beneath the battle mask, ignoring the shaking of his legs. He huffed out roughly, processor spinning and thinking over the calculations of his master's survival just by look at the surface damage, a hot pit of fear and sadness welled in his gut at the results that pinged back to him. A soft moan of agony left his vocalizer before he could help it, fingers clutching at the shattered armor beneath his hands before shooting the seeker in front of him a look that clearly stated move fast and move _now_.

Skywarp had taken orders dutifully, and worked with Soundwave to get their lord out of the battlefield and heading back towards base. He hid his agony well with determination, though it was obvious it was only because he absolutely refused to look at the unconscious body in his hands.

Just as the groundbridge finally activated, another fire was shot from the opposing side, one that just barely glanced off of Soundwave's helm, shattering both his visor and battle mask. With a yelp from the sudden sting that rattled his neural net, he hurled himself bodily through the bridge's tunnel as Skywarp fired off two returning shots, taking the brunt of Megatron's dead weight for a moment before Soundwave was able to recover himself and keep running until they reached the end of the warp, nearly running into the medic on the other side.

Hook had already gotten word and started barking commands to the two soldiers as they came hurtling through to the ship, hooking up various wires and lifelines that he had at the ready and getting to work right away on Megatron's damaged helm. As he peeled off the exterior helm, Hook discovered that one of the underlying solar panels had been completely smashed in from the force of the blast, and nearly crumbled away as the medic worked on it. All the while, Skywarp stood by, clutching to his master's overhelm and fingering at the singed hole on the side. Eventually though, he was too stricken with fear and grief, and apologized to his superior as he handed the helm over, ducking from the medbay, worried sob leaving him.

That left Hook and Soundwave alone with the unconscious overlord in the bay, and while the old mech didn't mind having a watcher, he said nothing, focused on his work that would likely last for joors.

Soundwave reached up and fingered along his shattered mask and visor remnants, finally really taking notice of the damage. The broken shards of reinforced glass were still falling from his face as he watched the medic work, staying back out of the way. His other hand clutched at Megatron's overhelm, keeping it close to his undamaged side, not wanting to defile it with his energon. Then suddenly and to his annoyance, he swayed on his pedes, systems starting to lock from the damage and lack of proper fuel. He fell to his knees, still clinging to his master's helm and barely making a sound, desperately wanting to keep from disturbing the older mech as he tried to bring back their leader from the brink of death. It was his last thought before his optics dimmed, the room fading as he went into a stasis lock, blind and deaf to the world as he fell.


	2. Chapter 2

The entire ordeal left Hook growling and even touchier than usual but he'd somehow stabilized the leader in time to work on Soundwave. Thankfully the audiobot's wound wasn't as severe, mainly a great deal of energon loss, and he was able to more or less patch it up in one quick go. The mask and visor, however, were too extensively damaged for him to do much with now. Those would have to wait until he could determine the fate of their illustrious leader. Once Soundwave had onlined again, Hook warned him about overworking himself, only to be given that chilling stare the TIC was known for, then reassured that as Megatron's longest standing follower, companion even, Soundwave would be putting all of his effort currently into keeping the army standing and balanced in such a time of tense peril as well as in the face of the ever-treacherous Starscream, until the warlord was deemed to be safe.

Megatron's wellbeing was a difficult and tense subject, to say the least. By the end of three solarcycles, Hook still didn't have a clear answer on if the overlord would make it or not, which left Starscream antsy and the rest of the soldiers on complete edge. He worked tirelessly in most cases, only pausing to refuel and recharge in short stints; even if part of his dogged rush was for his own personal feelings, he was determined to make this as quick and clean s he possibly could. Finally, on the fourth solarcycle, after working himself exhausted, the medic finally nodded to himself and gave the good news. Megatron was going to survive. Barely. If he'd been left alone any longer, taken any longer to get to medbay, there would have been no chance for him. For the first time in his lifecycle, he commended both mechs that had brought their leader in, giving the ever-persistent TIC a comm with the diagnosis. He added that Megatron would still take some time to regain consciousness, and he was likely to be in pain and in one hell of a horrible mood.

The communications officer tipped his helm in relief at his guard post on the bridge, spaulders sinking, tension melting, but his face kept stoic and hard without his mask, though it was difficult to keep such seriousness in the face of such good news. He stood slowly, a hand cupping over the welding patch tenderly as he made his way to the medbay, optics dimmed and nodding his helm in greeting to those who passed by, some even giving him shaky smiles. He was not comfortable with such attention, especially now without something to hide himself behind, the lingering gazes made him tense and finicky, stress lines already pulled taut by recent events.

He let out a soft sigh as he made it to the medical wing, gently tapping the code into the door that housed his master and most likely the old medic, perhaps even Skywarp, who had been checking up on Hook's progress almost as often as Soundwave. His optics flickered slightly, the docking port in his chassis opening slowly as he dipped a hand inside, pulling out a cube of energon he had stashed there earlier as he ducked into the room, making as little noise as possible.

Surprisingly, the recovering warlord was alone, obviously Skywarp was tending to the duties he still had and Hook was elsewhere. The soft beeps of machines keeping the stasis-bound mech running smoothly were the only sounds in the room, and the grey body seemed almost to be peaceful in its rest.

Beneath the surface, though, turmoil still waged war in the deeper parts of Megatron's mind. He was caught up in memories, flashes of past and recent events, over and over again. He'd been numb to the entire process of being stabilized to where he was now, but he was slowly regaining a sense of something. Feeling? He still had the sensation of being weightless, like he'd been floating in his abyss of memories for ages. But somehow, dull pain started to seep through. This couldn't be death, then. Unless all ideals of what death was like after the fact were wrong. He wondered to himself what it would be like to be brought back, to tell others that death was much crueler than life itself. But... how was he even pondering in the first place? Didn't that require being self-aware? Unless...

The machines suddenly stirred to brighter life, the beeps and lights flashing and sounding quicker. And slowly, surely, a dull red started to fill the offlined optics.

Blurry again, the overlord noted. Why? Why was everything so Primusdamn... wait, that form. Was that...? But if that was who he thought, then surely he wasn't...

His optics flashed in sudden understanding, widening in shock as they returned to their normal bright red glow. He couldn't move, and he felt his processor swimming and spiraling when he tried to flash a look around the room to gain his bearings, bringing out a loud groan from his crackling vocalizer. Everything suddenly felt heavy, overused, the weightless feeling was gone and replaced with lead. But this was- this was impossible. He was dead, he had died on the battlefield. How in Pit could he be in the medbay on his ship?

As he took a long moment to reassess everything, to go through his memorybank and recollect and doublecheck every waking moment, he came to the realization: he hadn't died. Somehow his loyal subordinates had brought him back from the brink. He caught sight of that familiar blue form again, and slowly, gingerly, turned his helm to gaze at his communications officer. "Sound...wave? I'm... alive?" His vocalizer was coarse, full of static from underuse for such a stretch of time, and unpleasant to his audials.

The groan had alerted the audiobot to his master's wakefulness, nearly jolting him straight out of his armor at the sound of it. He gave a soft chitter, one he couldn't hold back as he took a few steps closer to the warlord's side, being careful not to disturb his still-healing frame in the process. His bright golden optics locked with the red just a foot or so away, his expression soft. When he realized that this was the first time his lord would be seeing his face, he nearly pulled back, shame evident in his stance and EM field. "Yes, Megatron, you're alive. My lord, Skywarp and I brought you back to base. Hook has been working most diligently on your recovery." His voice was kept even, but only barely. He brought out Megatron's overhelm that he'd been keeping in a subspace since he onlined after repairs, fingers clutching at the worn metal, his grip attempting to smooth out the awful dents.

Megatron stared long and hard at the other mech, noticing right away that his officer's facial coverings had been compromised. "Your mask... You've let down your vocoder as well, was that damaged?" He attempted to lift a hand, only to find it was bound down, and he grunted some, tossing his helm to one side and instantly regretting it as it sent a pang of pain and dizziness. Groaning at the ache that spread from there to the rest of his frame, he let himself try to relax on the table. "Helm hurts like the pit." He knew complaining about it wouldn't do him any good, but the pain was intense. More than he'd ever experienced fighting as a gladiator in the deepest part of Cybertron's underworld, more than during the collapse of the mine when he was much younger. He hated that he wasn't in full function, especially his processor, and out of embarrassment that he was being seen like this, shuttered his optics and tried to force himself back into recharge. Between weakness and the ongoing recovery, it didn't take long before he was back out, but he seemed at least somewhat better when he wasn't awake to feel the aftermath of his near-death experience.

Soundwave's vents stuttered some, and he took a step back away from his master, settling the overhelm down on the table next to the med berth, optics shuttering as he tried to calm his internals. The systems slowed after a few moments, and his gaze lifted once more to look over the healing mech, tracing over the damage yet still able to admire the strength and beauty the overlord had to offer. He shook his helm though, no use pondering over thoughts like that. Instead, he set about the room, finding a vial of powerful pain killers and setting it aside for later use should the larger mech need it. He had minor medical training, as most of the officers did, though he usually only provided it for his casettes. The administration of medication was a simple task, so he brushed aside the worry that tried to worm its way into his thoughts.

His frame settled down onto the floor to wait, systems slowing as he accidentally fell into a recharge cycle as well, sitting there like a small sparkling with his knees drawn up to his chassis, face buried against his legs. With the last remnants of his consciousness, he muttered softly, "'M glad you're alive, Master..."

It was the last thing Megatron heard in his subconscious before falling into full recharge, and it put an ache into a deep part of his core, one that lasted through his stasis visions both good and bad.


End file.
